Author: mgherika

The story first told of an unnamed man who, on Dec. 15, 1956, went out into the woods of Derry, NH to harvest Christmas trees. The woodsman looked up from his work and was startled to see something staring silently back at him. It was, to his amazement, a little green critter that stood only about 2 feet tall.

Beltane is considered one of the most important of the ancient holidays. It’s history goes back further than records exist. It is a time for renewal, regrowth and fertility – for the land, livestock, wild animals, and humankind. It welcomes summer, the awakening of the earth and personal growth. The holiday begins at sundown on April 30th and continues through sundown on May first. However, due to calendar changes over the centuries, in years past, it was actually celebrated several days later allowing for more plants to be in bloom. Celebrations of this holiday are held as late as May 5th.

Fairy comes from the Old French word faerie. The word has been overused to describe a supernatural being. There is a great deal of difference in classifying a being as a fairy from the medieval literature and those from modern literature, especially those belonging to the Celtic tradition.

The zombie is a complicated myth that’s about as old as history but has really picked up in popularity lately. From government agencies putting out preparation plans for the imminent zombie invasion to Hollywood doubling its output of zombie movies, the brain-eating creatures that rise from the dead have become more prominent and more popular in recent years, for complicated reasons. We’re not going to go into the zombies’ moment in the spotlight, but suffice it to say that Americans are really afraid of an unknown enemy right now. In fact, humans have always been afraid of the unknown, and the ultimate unknown, of course, is death. Zombies are the monsters that get stuck in death, unable to move on to the afterworld, they wander the Earth killing as many victims as they can, like a plague.

In the religion and cultural lore of Southwestern tribes, there are witches known as skinwalkers who can alter their shapes at will to assume the characteristics of certain animals. Most of the world’s cultures have their own shapeshifter legends. The best known is the werewolf, popularized by dozens of Hollywood movies. European legends as far back as the 1500′s tell stories about werewolves. (The modern psychiatric term for humans who believe they are wolves is lycanthropy.) The people of India have a were- tiger legend. Africans have stories of were-leopards and were- jackals. Egyptians tell of were-hyenas.

For me, part of my fascination with the paranormal and the unknown is my passion for exploration. It isn’t a quest to find “the truth”, or prove something exists or doesn’t exist that I’m fascinated by. What I’m truly fascinated by are the moments when you see and feel something much greater than yourself; something so intricately perfect and beautiful beyond words that humans are just a speck of sand in comparison to what really exists. That being said, part of my “exploration” is staying in tune to what’s currently “out there” in the fringes of science. Here’s a very interesting article that the SETI Institute shared and I’d like to share about future evidence for extraterrestrial life and where it might come from…

According to the literature on the subject, poltergeist activity can be traced all the way back beyond 530 AD, appearing over a large cross section of cultures and generally exhibiting the same characteristics. But what is a poltergeist? The term poltergeist, which actually means noisy spirit, was first coined by the Germans. A name attributed to the phenomena before the nineteenth century, when an alternative basis of the disturbance was hitherto unknown. Given the rudimentary understanding of the time and lacking the technology that we currently have today, the unknown disturbances were quickly attributed to demons, spirits, ghosts or gremlins.

There is great debate between devoted pet owners and the scientific community whether animals have psychic abilities or are very sensitive to their environment. There are many stories that are commonly told such as the cat that jumps up on the windowsill everyday just before the owner comes home, or the dog that barks just before the telephone rings. The beloved pet that somehow becomes lost on the family trip, miraculously finds its way home, travelling hundreds of km/s over along period of time, and animals that can sense storms or earth quacks before they happen.

I often find myself looking into the latest research on the paranormal by Universities. Universities have means that a lot of paranormal groups don’t have, and I’m always curious to see how the science of the paranormal is changing or not changing. One recent research endeavor brought me to the University of Virginia’s Division of Perpetual Studies research on children and claims of reincarnation. I found it fascinating! Here is their explanation of their study…

For me fairy tales are where our reality and the paranormal become one in the same. No where is this more true than with Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. Once you’ve read his New Year’s story of “The Little Match Girl”, you will begin to understand what I mean…